Pew Internet Life just published a paper on measuring broadband access in the US. Apparently in June 2006, Pew, the University of Texas at Austin, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology gathered academics, state and federal officials from data-collection agencies, and staff from Capitol Hill to consider how to improve data collection for broadband.

Pew just released the proceeding from that meeting – the main theme was “networks may be global, but measurement must be local.”

Their findings match well with Senator Daniel Inouye’s Broadband Data Improvement Act: broadband must be defined as faster than 200 Kilobits per second and they should start tracking access by 9 digit zip code areas – which would help better pinpoint access.